LOCAL

A rubbish dump became an unlikely field of dreams for a group of Moscow friends – and led to the creation of one of the city’s most unlikely museums.

After uncovering the remains of a Morskoi Boi (Sea Battle) arcade machine in a landfill at Tagansky Park, Alexander Vugman and his fellow collectors began creating their Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines.

With blocky, flickering graphics and tinny sound effects, it’s a world away from the sophisticated cinematic computer games of today, but that hasn’t stopped a growing band of enthusiasts filing through the doors of the recently-opened converted garage on Baumanskaya Ulitsa.

“Some people come here because of nostalgia, but others for whom these games are new also like it here,” Vugman, the museum’s co-founder, said.

Others are lured by the drinks machines, also salvaged from bygone days, which serve up luridly colored sodas.Once these were a commonplace site on street corners, though in a concession to health and safety the museum supplies plastic cups rather than relying on a single glass, shared and - hopefully - washed by all customers who want a swig of tarkhun or cream soda.

At this year’s Piknik Afishi these machines did a lively trade among modern fashionistas, and they remain one of the museum’s most popular attractions.

Lured by the bright lights

On a Friday evening people keep on coming and even those who seem to stumble upon the museum by accident can’t resist the flashing lights of aging arcades and stay to play a game or two.  

Today there are about 40 exhibits. The oldest was built in 1978, but despite their age, most of them start working as soon as a hammer-and-sickle embossed 15 kopek coin falls down the slot.

That’s a testimony to the team’s restoration skills, since all of the machines were salvaged from dumps in city parks all over Russia.

“We are looking for new machines in the Park Kultury [a typical Soviet place of entertainment] all around the country,” he said.

A map of their routes would draw a snake-like maze far polar Murmansk to the spa-resort of Pyatigorsk in the Caucasus foothills, he added.

The museum has had a somewhat nomadic existence in Moscow as well: at first it opened in a basement beneath a university dormitory near Pervomaiskaya before going up town to a street near Tretyakovskaya, but earlier this year it opened in a large site to the east of the city center.

Nostalgia for another past

Most of the visitors are in their 20s-30s, but other age-groups are also keen to test their strength by pulling out a “repka” [turnip] as in a famed Russian folk tale or have a shot at “Okhota” [hunting].

“Our audience belongs to a vast age-group – from 16-18 year olds to those who are 45 now, and played these games as boys and girls,” Vugman said.

“My aunt Zhenya brought me here, and it was a surprise for me,” Anya, 9, told the Moscow News, while defending her goal in a table football game.

Anya’s aunt is also too young to remember the Soviet past, but that didn’t stop her from coming along.

“I wanted to experience the atmosphere of my parent’s childhood, when they were children, and also many of my friends have visited this place – so I just decided to do something nice for myself and my niece,” Zhenya, 16, said.

40 years of gaming

Muscovites were first introduced to arcade machines in the early 70s, when the capital’s own Park Kultury, Gorky Park, hosted the World Arcade Machines Exhibition.

That was the start of an enduring fascination, Vugman believes, and despite the lo-tech sound and graphics he believes that his haul of relics can compete with the flashiest newcomer.

“At one game industry exhibition we took part in back in 2007, queues to our machines were way longer that those for modern arcades and video games,” he said.

The somewhat shabby retro-monsters still have “their own characteristics”, but the striking difference is the “lack of commercialism,” Vugin believes.

“None of the Soviet arcade machines were produced for gambling,” he said. “And all of them are meant to develop something useful – like physical power, attention or knowledge.”

The Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines, Baumanskaya Ul. 11, m. Baumanskaya. Mon-Thur 2-9 pm, Fri-Sun 1-8 pm. Entry 300 rubles, including 15 plays on the machines